Falling
by Cleo Calliope
Summary: After the events of 'The Trial' Cordelia thinks.


Falling

Not many people know the feeling of complete certainty. You can try to explain it to them, but unless they've experienced it they can never really understand. I do understand. I knew it once. I knew who I was, where I was going, where my place in the world was. I'm not saying that every thing was easy. That there weren't times that I cursed my place, that it didn't hurt like hell, but that's life. There are good times and there are bad. But for me, there was no uncertainty. The world could turn upside down, and there were times that it did, but my place was secure. Everyone I knew questioned, who they were, were they were headed. I didn't. I didn't have to. It was all right there. No one could take it away.

At least that's what I thought.

No many people can understand the feeling of waking up one morning to find out that your life has been taken. Well, okay, I didn't wake up to it. Actually, I came home from school to it. One afternoon I walked in my front to door to learn that it wasn't my front door anymore. Stupid IRS. I know, not their fault, they were just doing their job. That doesn't make it hurt any less though, or make me not hate them for what they did. In a matter of a few hours my place was ripped away from me. It wasn't just the house, clothes, car, money, family heirlooms; it was my whole sense of who I was. I had been raised to believe that we were nothing without those things. That is was those things that made us who we were.

That was the day that I began to fall. And I've never really stopped.

I fell through graduation; it felt like a blur to me. I fell to Los Angeles and grabbed onto the first familiar thing that I could find, in an attempt to slow me down. Acting. I'd acted all my life, smiling when I wanted to cry, pretending not to care when my heart was breaking… But as it turns out, it only made me fall faster.

I had thought that I had reached the bottom, finally, that night when I went to Russell Winter's house. Oh, I was optimistic. At that point there was nowhere to go but up. All appearances to the contrary, I'm not stupid. I had a damn good idea of what he would want in return for help starting my career. At that point I didn't care anymore. I was just sick being of hungry, sick of the uncertainty… sick of falling. So, I pulled out the advice that my mother gave me for when I finally managed to catch a rich husband. Close your eyes, lay still, and think of all the things you could buy at a sale with his credit card. I was already mentally preparing myself when my mouth started running faster than my brain. I had already realized that he was a vampire and said so before my brain caught up. And then I was running.

I know I would have died that night if Angel hadn't been there. But he was. The chaos that followed is another blur in my mind and then Angel was picking me up and jumping over the side of the railing and we fell together to the floor below.

At some point, he landed. I didn't.

I was falling again, confused, but hopeful now. I thought that maybe I would hit bottom soon and find Angel and Doyle waiting there to catch me. I even began to slow down and when we were on the ship and Doyle was about to ask me out, I looked in his eyes and for a moment I thought I had landed and someone really had been there to catch me after all. But then he was gone. One heroic gesture and Angel and I were alone.

I was falling faster than ever after that night. But somehow it was okay, because at some point Angel had started falling too. He was there, holding my hand. We were falling together, and that made all the difference. I knew that if he was with me we would land safely. After all, hadn't it been Angel who saved me before, from death, from hunger, and in some ways from myself. He was always there to pick me up, and he wasn't afraid to fall with me.

Funny, finding one's anchor in mid air. I don't know how, but I did. Even Angel didn't know when or where we would land, but that was okay as long as he kept a hold of me.

But now... Angel let go and now I'm falling alone again. He's pushed me away, and I'm afraid that we might not be falling to the same place anymore. I've begun to pray that I never land. I'm terrified of landing, only to find myself alone in the dark, without even the sound of the wind in my ears to keep me company.

I keep reaching out for Angel, desperately trying to find him again. Oh, he's there, day to day in the office, but that doesn't mean that he's with me any more. He keeps me as far away from him as he can and I don't even know if I could find my way to him again, even if he would take me back.

Wesley tries to reach out to me. I think that he knows I'm falling, but he doesn't know how to stop it, but I no longer want it to stop. For now, at least I have the sound of the wind, the feeling of falling. And without Angel to catch me, I don't think I ever want to stop falling.

End.


End file.
